Search this site

Find affordable health plans

About our health insurance quote forms and phone lines

We do not sell insurance products, but this form will connect you with partners of healthinsurance.org who do sell insurance products. You may submit your information through this form, or call
1-844-385-76091-844-961-0503
to speak directly with licensed enrollers who will provide advice specific to your situation. Read about
your data and privacy.

The mission of healthinsurance.org and its editorial team is to provide information and resources that help American consumers make informed choices about buying and keeping health coverage. We are nationally recognized experts on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and state health insurance exchanges/marketplaces.
Learn more about us.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, uninsured residents have until June 15 to enroll. And the state's "easy enrollment" program for uninsured residents has been extended until July 15.

Health insurance in Maryland

Open enrollment for 2020 health plans has ended, although residents with qualifying events can still enroll or make changes to their coverage for 2020. And due to the coronavirus pandemic, Maryland Health Connection has opened a special enrollment period, through June 15, for uninsured residents.

Maryland’s health marketplace

Maryland is one of the states fighting the hardest to preserve the Affordable Care Act’s gains. See the steps Maryland has taken.

Maryland operates a state-run health insurance marketplace – Maryland Health Connection. The initial rollout of the exchange in 2013 was a disaster, and the exchange underwent a complete overhaul in 2014, resulting in a much better user experience.

Coronavirus special enrollment period through June 15, 2020

Open enrollment for 2020 ended on December 15, 2019, but enrollment is still possible for residents who have qualifying events. And as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Maryland Health Connection has opened a special enrollment period during which uninsured residents can sign up for coverage. The special enrollment period was initially slated to run through mid-April, but the exchange has extended it through June 15.

And although effective dates are normally always after the date a person enrolls, this special enrollment period has different rules in an effort to get as many uninsured people covered as quickly as possible:

People who enroll by April 15 will have coverage effective April 1.

People who enroll between April 16 and May 1 will have coverage effective May 1.

People who enroll between May 16 and June 15 will have coverage effective June 1.

This special enrollment window is designed to reduce the number of uninsured residents in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exchange reported that as of late March, more than 10,000 uninsured people had signed up for coverage (some were deemed eligible for Medicaid, while others were enrolled in private qualified health plans).

“Easy Enrollment” program continues until July 15, 2020

Maryland rolled out a new “easy enrollment” program in 2020: Uninsured residents can check a box on their tax return indicating that they’d like the state to share their data with Maryland Health Connection to determine whether they might be eligible for free or subsidized health coverage. If so, the exchange will reach out to the person and help them enroll — and they can do so right away, as the exchange will grant a 35-day special enrollment period during which the person can pick a plan (and Medicaid/CHIP enrollment run year-round).

The easy enrollment program was designed to follow the tax-filing season, which has been extended through July 15 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Maryland has announced that the easy enrollment program has been extended through July 15 as well. By the end of March, more than 1,600 people had enrolled in health coverage via the easy enrollment program.

Maryland’s marketplace

In 2020, two insurers – CareFirst BlueCross Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente – are offering individual-market health plans through the Maryland exchange. Thanks to the state’s reinsurance program, premiums decreased by an average of 13 percent in 2019, and by another 10 percent in 2020.

In the fall of 2015, Maryland Health Connection launched a pilot program in which customers who called the exchange were transferred to brokers for assistance. The program was designed to reduce call-center hold times and allow customers to receive plan selection advice, which only licensed agents and brokers can provide. Similar programs have since been adopted by HealthCare.gov and other state-run exchanges.

158,934 people enrolled in private plans through Maryland’s exchange during the open enrollment period for 2020 coverage, which was the highest enrollment had been since 2016, when more than 162,000 people enrolled.

Maryland Medicaid

Maryland expanded Medicaid under the ACA, and enrollment in the state’s Medicaid and CHIP coverage has increased by 54 percent since 2013. The federal government pays 90 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion, while the state pay the remaining 10 percent.

They had planned to switch to a for-profit entity and begin offering individual market coverage again for 2018, but by the summer of 2017 the state announced that the private investors who had planned to purchase the CO-OP had pulled out of the deal, and the CO-OP was placed in receivership.

Maryland and the Affordable Care Act

Maryland politics are dominated by Democrats at the state and federal level, and the Affordable Care Act has broad support among Maryland leaders. Governor Larry Hogan is a Republican, but has shown a willingness to work across the aisle to implement health care reform measures in the state, including a reinsurance program and the “easy enrollment” program that utilizes tax return data to help ensure that residents are getting the health coverage assistance for which they’re eligible.

When the ACA was passed in 2010, both Maryland Sens. Benjamin Cardin and Barbara Mikulski voted in favor of the law, as did all but one of the state’s eight U.S. Representatives. Mikulski has since been replaced by Chris Van Hollen, who is also a Democrat and supporter of the ACA.

The Maryland legislature approved a state-run health insurance marketplace, and then-Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the bills into law in 2011. The state marketplace, called the Maryland Health Connection, was one of the first approved by the federal government.

Despite the state’s early start, its marketplace performed poorly. So poorly, in fact, that the state abandoned its technological infrastructure and purchased the platform that Connecticut had been successfully using.

Medicaid expansion is a key ACA strategy for reducing the uninsured rate, and Maryland was among the states that expanded Medicaid as soon as that option became available, with coverage effective in January 2014.

How has Obamacare helped Maryland?

Maryland experienced a significant drop in its uninsured rate after the ACA’s individual mandate went into effect. According to US Census data, 10.2 percent of Maryland residents were uninsured in 2013, and that had fallen to 6 percent in 2018. Nationwide, the average uninsured rate was 14.5 percent in 2013, and 8.9 percent in 2019.

Does Maryland have a high-risk pool?

In the individual health insurance market prior to 2014, applications were medically underwritten in nearly every state, including Maryland. Because medical history was used to determine eligibility for coverage, people with pre-existing conditions often found themselves unable to purchase comprehensive plans in the private market.

The Maryland Health Insurance Plan (which has now been phased out) had been providing coverage since 2003 for people who were denied plans in the private market because of pre-existing conditions, or offered only plans that excluded their pre-existing conditions.

Under the ACA, medical history is no longer an eligibility factor for private health insurance. The need for high-risk pools has thus been largely eliminated, but some risk pools are still operational.

In 2013, MHIP released a plan for transitioning their members to the exchange. But Maryland’s exchange was one of the more technologically challenged during the first open enrollment period, and in December 2013, the MHIP board voted to extend MHIP Standard plans until the end of 2014, and MHIP Plus plans until the end of March 2014. In January 2014, MHIP also became a temporary insurer for Maryland residents who were unable to secure coverage in the Maryland exchange because of website problems during the first few months of 2014 open enrollment. MHIP stopped providing coverage as of January 1, 2015.

Medicare enrollment in the state of Maryland

1,044,855 Maryland residents were enrolled in Medicare as of the end of 2019. You can read our overview of Medicare in Maryland for more information about Medicare Advantage and Part D availability, as well as the state’s rules for Medigap plans.

State-based health reform legislation

Scroll to the bottom of this page for a summary of recent state-based legislation related to healthcare reform.